Margaret Chase Smith

Unsung History

At the Republican National Convention in July 1964, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s name was placed in nomination for the presidency, and she received votes from 27 delegates, the first time a woman was placed in nomination at a major party’s presidential convention in the United States. It was only one of many firsts Smith would achieve in her remarkable decades-long career that included speaking out against McCathyism on the floor of the Senate in 1950 and being the first woman of Congress to break the sound barrier in 1957. Joining this episode to help us learn more about Senator Smith is Dr. Teri Finneman, Associate Professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas and author of Press Portrayals of Women Politicians, 1870s-2000s: From Lunatic Woodhull to Polarizing Palin.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The in-episode audio is from the 1964 Margaret Chase Smith Presidential Campaign Announcement, courtesy Northeast Historic Film Archive, available via C-SPAN. The episode image is “Senator Margaret Chase Smith, ca. 1954,” Records of the U.S. Information Agency, National Archives.

Additional Sources:

• “No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith,” by Janann Sherman, Rutgers University Press, 1999.
• “Biography,” Margaret Chase Smith Library.
• “Margaret Chase Smith; Congressional Trailblazer,” by Staff Sgt. Jarred Martinez, Mountain Home Air Force Base, August 26, 2021.
• “Women in Military Service; the Role of Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith,” by Senator Susan Collins, June 26, 2023.
• “Declaration of Conscience,” delivered by Senator Margaret Chase Smith to the United States Senate on June 1, 1950.
• “Margaret Chase Smith: Breaking the Barrier,” by Jessie Kratz, National Archives, October 15, 2020.
• “The Moment That Presaged a Maine Senator’s Downfall,” by Rachel Slade, DownEast, May 2020.
• “Margaret Chase Smith Is Dead at 97; Maine Republican Made History Twice,” by Richard Severo, The New York Times, May 30, 1995.

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